Surinamese Dutch

Surinamese Dutch is generally easily distinguishable from other standardized forms of Dutch due to the accent and some loanwords adopted from other languages spoken in Suriname.

History

Dutch was introduced in what is now Suriname when Paramaribo and its environs became a Dutch colony. The remainder of Suriname, however, remained in British hands. Only after the Dutch had lost New Netherland (now New York) to the British did they in exchange receive the rest of Suriname. Then, Dutch became the language of communication between Native Surinamese, African slaves, and the Dutch colonial administration. In 1876, the language also became official in the Surinamese education system, and new immigrants from British India and the Dutch East Indies also picked up the language. The immigrants also added features to spoken Dutch that are not present in the original European variants of Dutch, and preserved features (mostly vocabulary) that are not present in Dutch from the Netherlands.